Audio Sidechain for VST Plugins

The "Support for parallel bus sends and outputs with up to three per bus tile" item in the release notes refers to the ability to feed multiple destination Busses from a single Send tile in the Fairlight Mixer - with a maximum of three destinations per tile.

That's great for mid/side mixing. It is very welcome.
Then add the sidechaining.

Thank you for this prompt reply. I installed the latest 18.6 on my spare machine and can confirm that BMD still has not added the ability to send a sidechain signal into third party VST plug-ins. This really needs to be fixed by BMD as it is an obvious limitation in Fairlight that conspicuously distinguishes Fairlight from a 'real DAW'.

It is oddly absent...

+1 by me

Another vote for this crucial but missing feature!

+1
Please, Please add sidechain ability for VST. Its was quite literally the first thing I was looking for when started editing audio. Using key frames to duck music over audio is extremely tedious, time consuming, and inconsistent. I really should be using a compressor to do this.

Using key frames to duck music over audio is extremely tedious, time consuming, and inconsistent. I really should be using a compressor to do this.

Technically, you can do it using Resolve's dynamics effect, but it's extremely limited and you can only use one bus for sidechaining.

Most modern DAWs have VST sidechaining and this is one of the big reasons I prefer to render all audio out of Resolve and edit/mix in another DAW. I use Reaper, which is fantastic for sidechaining and you can even sidechain from more than one source on a single track. This allows you to do things like sidechain the background music differently depending on whether the main source is spoken dialog or a sound effect. I'd love for Resolve to implement sidechaining in this way.

Another proponent for this absolutely make or break feature!

Yes! Sidechain for external VST plugins!

Hey Vit!

The free StudioRack from Waves can do the same:
https://www.waves.com/plugins/studiorack#image

Could you elaborate on how to sidechain an external VST plugin using StudioRack? I can't seem to get it to work. How did you do it?

Hey Vit!

The free StudioRack from Waves can do the same:
https://www.waves.com/plugins/studiorack#image

Could you elaborate on how to sidechain an external VST plugin using StudioRack? I can't seem to get it to work. How did you do it?

It doesn't work.
Also the DDMF Metaplugin doesn't work - well it kinda works until it crashes Resolve - the next time you try to load the project it won't load. Neutron 3 & 4 also do not work with their internal sidechaining - besides iZotope plugins user interface starting to hog the GPU til it crawls.

I've already wasted several days to get some kind of workaround of Resolve's incapability to sidechain...
It is so frustrating and so much needed for mastering.

Thanks for the reply Robert. I was playing with it all day from the moment I read the comment, and was banging my head on the wall trying to figure out how to do it. Oh well, I guess we just have to wait for the feature to be implemented in a future release, while I repair my wall.

It's funny how Fairlight is missing such a basic and essential feature. And I won't even mention not being able to slip a clip in FL, while you can do it on the Edit page


Edit: miswrote "track" instead of "clip"

Hey Vit!

The free StudioRack from Waves can do the same:
https://www.waves.com/plugins/studiorack#image

Could you elaborate on how to sidechain an external VST plugin using StudioRack? I can't seem to get it to work. How did you do it?

It doesn't work.

I tried StudioRack and I couldn't find a way to route audio between sidechained plugins from other tracks.

You're right. Sorry for the bad tip.

I thought StudioRack could do that. I recently installed it for exactly that reason.
I hope Blackmagic adds Sidechaning natively.

I too have tried DDMF Metaplugin and also found it doesn't work right. I haven't found any good workarounds for VST sidechaining in applications that don't support it natively.

I have put in a feature request to NUGEN Audio to add send/receive capabilities to SigMod (send from one instance of SigMod and receive on another instance) for sidechaining VST plugins. I mentioned it would be very useful for applications that don't support VST sidechaining natively and I gave DaVinci Resolve as an example. This could potentially be an alternative to Metaplugin as SigMod does have the ability to send out of SigMod to other tracks, but not receive. I don't know if this would ultimately work any better than Metaplugin, but it's worth a shot.

If others would like to request this feature as well, NUGEN currently has a survey going on where you can choose to get SigMod for free (in Question #1) after completing the survey and you can also request features for their plugins as part of the survey (in Question #12).
https://nugenaudio.com/annual-survey-2024

While I would prefer Resolve to implement VST sidechaining natively, if third parties like NUGEN or DDMF could provide a functioning workaround that would certainly be better than not having it at all.

I have put in a feature request to NUGEN Audio to add send/receive capabilities to SigMod (send from one instance of SigMod and receive on another instance) for sidechaining VST plugins. I mentioned it would be very useful for applications that don't support VST sidechaining natively and I gave DaVinci Resolve as an example. This could potentially be an alternative to Metaplugin as SigMod does have the ability to send out of SigMod to other tracks, but not receive.

Funny that you had the same thought about SigMod as I when I played around with it a week ago.
What SigMod can do now (for me in DVR 17.4.6) is to send the audio from one track to another - which isn't really possible in DVR 17.x (patching does not work).

I tried so many different setups that it haunted me in my sleep - in my dreams I kept trying to figure out a way to do side chaining with the help of SigMod %-)

It's a huge oversight that they did not integrate a receive module directly into a SigMod instance. Also they should support more than 2 channels and a signal splitter inside the instance.

Wanted to add a cool thing about SigMod:

I have several Wave plugins which do not work (or aren't seen) in iZotope RX - like for example Clarity Voice PRO or LoAir, Vocal Rider and more. Here comes SigMod to the rescue - load it as a plugin and design an Insert. Then you can put any of the Waves plugin inside SigMod as it has it's own VST scan engine. Or create a plugin chain - which is not directly possible with RX.

Wanted to add a cool thing about SigMod:

I have several Wave plugins which do not work (or aren't seen) in iZotope RX - like for example Clarity Voice PRO or LoAir, Vocal Rider and more. Here comes SigMod to the rescue - load it as a plugin and design an Insert. Then you can put any of the Waves plugin inside SigMod as it has it's own VST scan engine. Or create a plugin chain - which is not directly possible with RX.

Cool - thx for posting this tip!

Funny that you had the same thought about SigMod as I when I played around with it a week ago.

Yeah, I've been trying at this for a while hoping to find a good third party solution (my old NLE Vegas Pro also didn't have sidechaining). Metaplugin kinda works but is buggy with high latency that doesn't work well for sidechaining, Waves StudioRack doesn't have sidechaining from other tracks, and SigMod also doesn't have sidechaining from other tracks.

I have several Wave plugins which do not work (or aren't seen) in iZotope RX - like for example Clarity Voice PRO or LoAir, Vocal Rider and more. Here comes SigMod to the rescue - load it as a plugin and design an Insert.

Yeah, I've also seen people talk about using Metaplugin as a plugin wrapper to get it to work in editors that don't support them or as a way to oversample plugins that don't have oversampling natively.

Has anyone noted whether latest Resolve/Fairlight updates (18.6) have now made it possible to create sidechains for and with VST plugins?

Have been continuing to use an older 18.4 version of Studio, hesitating to update to latest 18.6 in middle of a large job, but am wondering if anyone has been able to test 18.6 for this functionality - my curiosit piqued by this in the release notes:

"Support for parallel bus sends and outputs with up to three per bus tile."

Thanks in advance for any insight anyone can offer. Best, Tom

Since I’m fairly new to Resolve (audio background here coming from Pro Tools), I didn’t realize this wasn’t a feature until I tried to set side-chaining up using my VST’s. I couldn’t find anything about side-chaining using VST’s in the user manual (which version 18.6 still links to an 18.4 manual if memory serves me). I certainly couldn’t find a way to do it so am almost certain it is not an option.

Speaking of Fairlight I do see many obvious Pro Tools influences (which is great) but I’d love to see a more robust set of features implemented - would be even better if BMD could just go ahead and fully copy Pro Tools’ keyboard shortcuts!

would be even better if BMD could just go ahead and fully copy Pro Tools’ keyboard shortcuts!

You may find the ProTools preset in the Keyboard Customisation window useful.

+1 I was so excited to try out a new plugin that only works by side chaining audio from another track into it and was devastated to learn that Fairlight does not support side chaining. I pray for it to be added in a future update

would be even better if BMD could just go ahead and fully copy Pro Tools’ keyboard shortcuts!

You may find the ProTools preset in the Keyboard Customisation window useful.

It's what I've been using but it isn't quite there for me tbh..

+1 I was so excited to try out a new plugin that only works by side chaining audio from another track into it and was devastated to learn that Fairlight does not support side chaining. I pray for it to be added in a future update

This is a main reason why I render audio out of Resolve and move to Reaper for mixing, which is incredible for sidechaining. Reaper also has video support so I render video out of Resolve and load that into Reaper to have the video while finalizing the edit and mix. Unfortunately, Reaper doesn't support AAF or OMF natively and I don't really want to pay for a converter, so I just manually bounce the audio and video files to move between programs. Not exactly efficient, but it works.

Hey Ya'll

I have a current workaround for Resolve's lack of sidechain support. I made a video Illustrating the basic setup here.

It involves using BlueCat's Patchwork for inner-channel routing and BlueCat's Connector for cross-track routing. Hopefully this can be of use to some of ya'll. Sucks that it's a $150 fix, but It's all I've been able to come up with so far.

Hey Ya'll

I have a current workaround for Resolve's lack of sidechain support. I made a video Illustrating the basic setup here.

It involves using BlueCat's Patchwork for inner-channel routing and BlueCat's Connector for cross-track routing. Hopefully this can be of use to some of ya'll. Sucks that it's a $150 fix, but It's all I've been able to come up with so far.

Thanks a lot Grant for sharing your workaround! Do you think both Bluecat connector AND patchwork are needed? I want to send the signal from the vocal bus into a dynamic EQ plugin that's on the Music bus so that the EQ carves out some frequencies from the music based on the frequency response from the vocal. Is Bluecat patchwork capable of doing that by itself or do I need the connector plugin as well?

Thanks a lot Grant for sharing your workaround! Do you think both Bluecat connector AND patchwork are needed? I want to send the signal from the vocal bus into a dynamic EQ plugin that's on the Music bus so that the EQ carves out some frequencies from the music based on the frequency response from the vocal. Is Bluecat patchwork capable of doing that by itself or do I need the connector plugin as well?

I wanted to do exactly what you described. AFAIK Connector or something like it is needed to send a signal from one instance of patchwork to another. I show that in the video too. I don't think patchwork has the ability to communicate with other patchwork instances without Connector. If you find something please let me know! They both have trial versions as well. Happy mixing!

I have a current workaround for Resolve's lack of sidechain support. I made a video Illustrating the basic setup here. It involves using BlueCat's Patchwork for inner-channel routing and BlueCat's Connector for cross-track routing.

Thanks for the info.

I've been meaning to try Sonible's SmartEQ to see if the group function would work in Resolve as it uses UDP for the connection. I tried it and it does work. The group mixing function is not the same thing as sidechaining so it's not a replacement, but I wanted to test connecting between instances to see if that would work in Resolve.

Mixer overhaul in general would be very nice.

Agreed! VST sidechaining is my top audio priority, but the mixer really does need an overhaul too.

What's wrong with the mixer?

Mixer overhaul in general would be very nice.

Agreed! VST sidechaining is my top audio priority, but the mixer really does need an overhaul too.

What's wrong with the mixer?

My biggest issue by far is stability. Using VST effects Fairlight/Resolve is extremely buggy causing very sluggish behavior and consistent crashes (I even got locked out of a project due to a couple plugins on the main bus and Resolve immediately crashed while trying to open it). Making changes in plugins can be completely ignored, sometimes toggling the plugin in and out of bypass will get it to start working again and other times I just delete the plugin and re-add it again.

Regarding the mixer functionality, for stereo tracks I would prefer two small knobs for left/right balance and stereo width instead of the surround mixer, by default the panning doesn't pan hard right/left (maybe there is a way to change this in the settings not sure), no options for pre/post fader for effects, no double-click (or right-click) to type in values, cannot shrink the fader section to show more effects, track metering lacks a lot of options (RMS, LUFS, numerical value for max peak, etc.), when adding a VST from the mixer there is no scroll bar for the effects list, dragging to expand the mixer is slow/laggy, no folder tracks, not even track colors, no dragging to change track order, etc.

I've had such a bad experience with audio in Resolve dealing with bugs and crashes, that I'll be sticking to rendering audio out of Resolve to mix in Reaper for the foreseeable future. There are major problems they need to get sorted out before I'll attempt it again.

Did you try the new side chaining in 19b1?

Did you try the new side chaining in 19b1?

I have not downloaded the beta version yet. I'm giving it a few days to see how the overall response is on stability and so far I haven't seen anything that appears troublesome, which is a good sign. I saw they've added VST sidechaining in the new feature list, which is fantastic. None of the youtubers I follow for Resolve has demonstrated the VST sidechaining yet, so I'm not sure how it was implemented.

Now my only reservation about doing audio in Resolve is stability while using VST plugins. I recently tried doing all audio in Resolve with a handful of plugins (Waves, Sonible, SSL, Nefangled Audio, KirchhoffEQ, etc) and was fighting against constant problems (compound clips randomly muting themselves, timelines with VSTs got extremely sluggish, freezes, crashes, etc). But if audio stability has also been improved in v19 then I'd love to do audio entirely inside of Resolve instead of having to render audio out of Resolve to mix in Reaper.

I installed v19 beta1 and it looks pretty stable, no complaints so far. The main reason I installed it is to see if sidechain is finally working and my response is... mostly yes.

Using it with the standard Dynamics plugin in Resolve is as you would expect. What I am interested in is VST3 support. I used it with Fabfilter Pro-MB and some Waves plugins and it does work, but only when you configure the plugin to listen to a track, NOT a bus.

So... here's what I did:

Track 1 : dialogue > DIALOGUE BUS
Track 2 : dialogue > DIALOGUE BUS
Track 3 : music > MUSIC BUS
Track 4: music > MUSIC BUS
DIALOGUE BUS > MAIN OUT
MUSIC BUS > MAIN OUT

Note that the behaviour/bug I will describe applies to both external VST and the built-in supported plugins.

When I put Pro-MB on the MUSIC BUS and configre it to listen to the DIALOGUE BUS, there is a big delay for the plugin to respond to the incoming signal. If I click on LISTEN, to check the incoming signal, I get an echo/doubler effect, meaning I hear the dialogue coming in from the dialogue bus first and then from the external sidechain. This is not a matter of attack, release, hold, as I've set everything to zero, so I can see when it kicks in. There is an incoming delay and this is clearly a bug, because...

When I put Pro-MB on the MUSIC BUS and configre it to listen to a dialogue track (eg track 1, but it doesn't really matter so long as it's a track and not a bus), the response is imminent, as you would expect. Also, when I press on the LISTEN button on the plugin, there is no delay and there is only one signal coming in.

So my conclusion is that sidechaining works but only when it listens to a track and NOT a bus and this behaviour is consistent with both built-in plugins that support sidechain (dynamics and limiter) and Fabfilter-Waves plugins that support sidechain.

I recommend downloading and reading the DaVinci Resolve 19 New Features Guide.pdf which can be found in the support-downloads page.

Also, for those who want to use external plugins, make sure you enable the sidechain toggle that can be found at the top of the plugin window AND setting the sidechain to external from within the plugin. For example, in Pro-MB this can be found in the Advanced panel of the band you are shaping.

Hopefully they will fix this bug with the next release.

I also tried DVR 19 Beta on a test system. It seems Fairlight performance has improved - I had a project with AudioBrewser Ambisonic plugin (Encoder, Upscaler, Decoder) and within DVR 18 that laptop was not able to playback several instances without stuttering. DVR19 had no problem with that.

Also tried side chaining, but on the laptop I had only iZotope Neutron 4 installed. Which has had performance problems on its own, and still has. But that seems more related to some bad GUI programming on iZotopes side - just buy activating the Neutron GUI it starts to grab one CPU core at 100% and also the GPU jumps to 100% load, making everything sluggish and slow.

I have this behavior on my Workstation with DVR 17 and iZotope and even by using Ozone inside iZotope RX Advanced it hogs up all the GPU - just the GUI sitting idle in the background.

The only way to get iZotope Plugins behave is by locking them into Nugen SigMod.

I installed v19 beta1 and it looks pretty stable, no complaints so far.

I also tried DVR 19 Beta on a test system. It seems Fairlight performance has improved

Thank you. That's great to hear.

Has anyone tried using Waves plugins in the v19 beta yet? I've seen from multiple other users confirming that Waves has been a source of problems in Resolve. Hopefully these issues have also been addressed in v19 as well.

I’ve been using a few Waves plugins like LoAir, Submarine, UM226 and Voice Clarity Pro which - after an update did work flawlessly for me in Resolve. But this only is a small subset of all Wave plugins and as such this report just my personal experience. I’ll try to get around Waves, but especially LoAir is unmatched so far.

I’ve been using a few Waves plugins like LoAir, Submarine, UM226 and Voice Clarity Pro which - after an update did work flawlessly for me in Resolve.

Were you having problems with those Waves plugins in previous Resolve versions and now v19 is fixed? If so, that's very encouraging.

I typically use only a handful of Waves plugins like RVox, MV2 and Clarity Vx and I've had nothing but problems with performance and stability in Resolve. If BMD has gotten these issues sorted out now, then that is awesome! I'm looking forward to trying v19.

Sorry no. I meant after I updated the Waves plugins in their dreaded Waves Central.
I had older versions which did not work correctly in Resolve 17 and so finally payed for the updates. First after updating nothing worked and Resolve didn’t even see the plugins.
Had to completely remove all Waves plugins, do a repair in Waves Central and reinstall all plugins. After that they worked.

But I haven’t tried them in Resolve 19, as my test system has no access to Waves Central.

From Waves, I have Clarity, L2, H-reverb, Rvox, all working fine in the beta. I've never had any issues with any Waves or Fabfilter plugins, only with Izotope, which I tried in demo for a while, and they slowed switching between timelines so much, they were unusable. But Waves and Fabfilters work fine for me.

Sorry no. I meant after I updated the Waves plugins in their dreaded Waves Central. I had older versions which did not work correctly in Resolve 17 and so finally payed for the updates.

Oh, I see. My Waves plugins are relatively new and still up to date, but I've still had problems in Resolve 18.

From Waves, I have Clarity, L2, H-reverb, Rvox, all working fine in the beta. I've never had any issues with any Waves or Fabfilter plugins, only with Izotope, which I tried in demo for a while, and they slowed switching between timelines so much, they were unusable.

Yes, the slow timeline switching is one of the problems I have noticed as well with VST plugins, as well as freezes and crashes. I don't believe I've tried using any Izotope plugins in Resolve yet. I did some testing before with Native Instruments plugins like Raum when someone else reported crashing problems with it and it crashed for me too when trying to save the project.